Jerry, all good comments ...
Obviously he used the word 'cheating' because what we were hearing weren't the sounds that actually came out of his mouth - but as I said, he was upfront with it, even explaining on the you tube site that his voice was transposed up 7 half tones ...

As for singing in original keys, I could probably count the songs where I can do that ... BUT, what the audience hears is exactly (good or bad) what is coming out of my mouth ...

And, yes, we use ALL the tools ...

I used every tool at my disposal while working on stage, though I never used a vocal transposer. Instead, I transposed the keyboard to chords that fit my limited vocal range. And, like most vocalist, I used effects such as reverb, etc... to enhance my vocal quality. I never told anyone in the audience that I did these things, so in a way, I guess I cheated a bit. Way back when, a time when I was a have guitar will travel guy, I didn't have any of these nice things we had today, but I was still able to make a few bucks on stage while singing country songs to the ladies and strumming my 12-string Yamaha guitar. Yamaha makes some incredible musical instruments, guitars, grand pianos, saxes, you name it, they make it. They also make a damned good outboard motor - had three of them and they never failed me.

All the best,

Gary

I just found a slew of vids this guy posted, his normal voice is relatively high, much higher than mine. Check out his guitar playing talents.



Gary

I can play in all twelve keys if needed but I do use the Transposer for my editied SMF's and when I use a Style I re-write the song into a key thats comfortable for me. Rarely do I do original keys.
Many big name acts change the keys of their songs live to save their voices when doing many shows. What you can do at 10 PM at night, fully loose and warmed up in the studio is sometimes very hard to emulate live.
Not cheating if you can sing well but just don't have the natural voice to cover certain high parts.
As long as it comes out well no one cares.

Gary, his down home good ol’ boy style does add an element of interest. He certainly seems to have talent as his singing and guitar playing show. Even though he sang the initial demo in a lower key...I did not notice any pitch correction going on.
JM

Bill ... I also rarely sing in the original key, but rather than use the transposer button, I too prefer to transpose the chords to my key ... If I'm working with someone else, I don't want to make the mistake of calling the wrong key if I'm playing using the transposer button ...